


Amaranthine

by wickersnap



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy
Genre: Everyone is friends, Fluff, M/M, Snapshots, Soft and tender, clone cameos/mentions, implied blyla, it's literally just about how in love and besotted they are it's almost disgusting, jedi cameos/mentions, mace is cool, palpatine is dead and everything is good, pure fluff, super lightly hinted vox bc I cannot control myself
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-07
Updated: 2020-08-07
Packaged: 2021-03-06 06:08:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,299
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25768681
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wickersnap/pseuds/wickersnap
Summary: “I missed you,” Anakin tells the side of his cheek. “Force, I missed you so much.”Obi-Wan chuckles and coaxes him far enough over to give a proper hello kiss. “I’ve missed you too.”
Relationships: Obi-Wan Kenobi/Anakin Skywalker, Padmé Amidala & Anakin Skywalker
Comments: 19
Kudos: 120





	Amaranthine

**Author's Note:**

> I have no excuse, I'm just ridiculously soft. They deserve happiness.  
> If anyone would like to use my prompts (below) or use them to make up your own, do send me a link! I'd love to see others' interpretations!

Comforting warmth carries well on the breeze that ruffles through the loose curls falling down her back. The windshield curving around the apartment balcony is set to cut out all but a low buzz of the passing Coruscanti air traffic and the gentler of gusts up so high. Tonight the air is mild enough for her gauzy casual gowns, the types with no backs or sleeves or sometimes half their fronts, the kind she used to dream of as a small child and now often despairs of at their impracticality.

In front of her the buildings surrounding the Senatorial Quarters rise above like glinting, ruthless stalagmites, winking with tiny window lights and signs. They are as beautiful in their twisting architecture as they are brutal; Padmé knows she is prone to seeing the best in things even where most others do not. Behind her is her darkened bedroom, the bed made and awaiting her retirement. Dormé is seated at the dressing table and watching over her. Beyond that, through the open bedroom door, Padmé can just see the end of the sofa in her living room. Upon it are two of her closest friends, completely out for the count after a long week’s work. She knows that Anakin’s robe has been flung across a nearby chair with a carelessness that Obi-Wan has never truly been able to scold out of him. She knows that Obi-Wan’s own tunics are uncharacteristically rumpled and out of order where he slumps into his well-earned rest. She knows that there will be a minimum of two points of contact between them, from Anakin’s hand thrown over Obi-Wan’s knee or his head tipped adorably onto Obi-Wan’s shoulder or their legs pressed together at the thigh. She doesn’t need to imagine it, really, with the number of times she’s been privy to such a scene before.

Anakin’s hair, golden in the dim apartment lighting, haloed and messy from his restless fingers, tumbling over the back of the sofa and curling up just behind Obi-Wan’s ear. Obi-Wan with his cheek turned towards Anakin if not resting on some other part of him, flushed delicately from their after dinner drinks. Beiges and browns and the general drabs of their Jedi modesty still do not detract from each of their objective attractiveness—not in the least.

Padmé loves them. She loves all of her friends, but her heart reaches out to these two the most. These two who put their lives on the line with every mission, more so than she herself has ever had to. These two who give up their everything in the name of duty. Give up their everything and still will have more asked of them tomorrow. More again the day after, and the day after that. Their everything, that is, except each other. Perhaps, to them, they are each other’s everything. 

She knows they are quiet, that they are hiding in plain view. Their abundance of affections are the least obtrusive she has ever witnessed and somehow all the more touching. If here is somewhere they can let their guards down and feel free, then here they shall be free. She will give them this place because it is truly the least she can do for them, these dear friends she treasures so greatly. These wonderful men, brilliant Jedi, all-around underappreciated by most everyone else. She will gladly take them under her wings and hide them from the rest of the galaxy, secret them away until they no longer need her.

Because for them, it is the least that she can do.

_ — Coruscant view - messy hair - an open door — _

Above their heads the golden heat of the sun winks in and out of view between the leaves of the city’s encroaching flora. The sky is cloudless and a deep, crystalline sapphire, amplifying the dry and comfortable warmth of such a pleasant spring day. The buildings on this world are generally no more than two storeys tall and built of light sandstone, intricately carved and softly shaped as if to blend into the natural surroundings. The path is dusty but cobbled and solid underfoot, swept with the gentle brush of their dark travelling cloaks as they flow around their ankles. 

Anakin lets his hood fall back as he enjoys the serenity of this untouched city. The market stalls either side of him are not the shrieking, clamouring headaches they would be back on Tatooine and the Force is palpably glowing with life everywhere he looks for it. Tropical-looking avian creatures perch and click and chirp from building frescoes and lampposts and benches, some with flowing pink crowns of feathers and some with quills as short and bristly as his old padawan haircut. A lichen the same blonde as Rex’s crawls over the trunk of a nearby tree.

Obi-Wan walks ahead, neither of them in any sort of hurry. They stop here and there to talk to vendors and any excitable passers-by enthused by Jedi presence. Anakin takes numerous opportunities to brush his hand against Obi-Wan’s and curl their fingers together where they’re hidden beneath the folds of their cloaks, however briefly he’s allowed, though he insists on hanging on when they start off down the road again after bidding good day to a charitable Gran. Obi-Wan slides him one of his looks but Anakin couldn’t care less, basking in the amusement and adoration that sing between them in the Force.

A glimmer of light catches Anakin’s eye and draws him over to one of the stalls on his right. He drops Obi-Wan’s hand before anyone can see them and wanders over into the shaded stand, looking down at a neat collection of metal jewellery and trinkets. The seller sets down the little silver chain in her hands beside its bronze and gold partners, a number of thin and delicate loops with an assortment of gemstone pendants lined up at each nadir.

“They’re beautiful,” he says, smiling as he inspects a small shimmering blue stone fashioned into the shape of a Vardosian ocean surfer. 

“Thank you, sir Jedi,” the stallholder replies musically. She nudges more of the coloured quartz towards him, practically glowing with pride. “I make them with the leftovers of my son’s exports. All is local, see?”

“How much?”

“Are you buying things again, Anakin?” Obi-Wan asks, peering over his shoulder.

Anakin shows him a reddish pendant in the likeness of one of the birds currently flitting around above their heads. “Don’t you think Padmé will like it?”

He hums. “Well, I suppose you’ve always had a better eye for these things than I have. They are rather lovely.”

He lets Anakin pay for the pendant and a simple gold chain for it to go on. Both of them thank the overjoyed jeweller before they continue on towards the embassy. The paper bag crinkles happily in Anakin’s pocket, featherlight amongst the thick woolen folds. 

Above them the wind rifles through the purple canopy of the trees with renewed vigour; Obi-Wan brushes Anakin’s fluttering hair back behind his ear and smiles. That smile in its own right is a sight that far outstrips the natural beauty of this rich, colourful planet.

_— travelling cloaks - a gold chain - purple trees —_

Mist rolls threateningly down the sides of the mountain peaks towering around them. It billows outwards as if weighted down and crashing in quarter-time, bringing with it the kind of drizzling rain that clings to hair and drenches clothes through in a matter of ticks. The path they’re on is already unforgiving as it is, treacherously steep and scattered with loose earth and stone that skitters beneath the soles of their boots. Greys and dullish reds stretch unimpeded as far as the eye can see. There are no trees or bushes this far up, and there is no one around to hear their cries for help if anything were to go awry. 

It is for such a reason that Obi-Wan persuades Anakin into the next cave they came upon to rest. They’re soaked to the bone, chilled and tiring, quite a lethal combination for a trek up into the lifeless peaks. The cave entrance is tight and sharp around the edges, advantageous in the case of possible aggravators even though they sense absolutely no sentient matter when they stretch out their awareness in the Force. 

Anakin drops his pack on the floor behind a large boulder and begins sifting through it. Obi-Wan joins him in his little nook, lowering himself to sit and take some weight off his feet for a while. A small orange light cuts through the gloom when Anakin lights his fuel lamp, placing it surely atop the rock. His shadow stretches and flickers when he sits himself back next to Obi-Wan, shoulder to shoulder, thigh to thigh, gently resting a cheek against his head. They’re still cold with the scent of fresh mountain rain, still damp in uncomfortable places, but the warmth of both of their bodies seeps through the layers of their robes almost immediately to sink them into an exhausted semblance of stolen comfort.

Obi-Wan is startled awake an unknowable time later by a crash and a tinkling of shattered glassine. The lantern now lies quenched at their feet in several pieces, its dwindled fuel reserve trickling quickly away down the incline leading farther into the cave. Anakin stirs quietly at his shoulder. The next blast of icy wind that must have knocked the lantern down makes them both shiver, which is when Obi-Wan notices just how much they’ve curled into each other and clung. It’s still too cold up here, he supposes.

He drops a small kiss to Anakin’s temple before sitting up and gently extricating himself from the embrace. Immediately, the glacial chill of the cave draft sinks its fingers into the places Anakin’s body heat had kept his damp clothes from freezing his skin; he shivers against the temptation of returning to their embrace and never moving again. With his foot he sweeps the useless lantern shards away to the far wall, wincing with every screech and scratch against the stone floor. Anakin is soon grumbling himself awake and rooting around in his bag again, this time ferreting out their rations for dinner.

“Hungry?” Obi-Wan asks. 

“When aren’t I?” Anakin replies glumly. “Surely you should know this by now.”

“One can always hope you’ll grow up someday.”

Anakin grins lazily up at him from between windswept strands of hair. “Face it, Obi-Wan, you’d die of boredom after the first week if I did.”

Obi-Wan hums and does not deny the smile tugging at his lips in response. “And still I only have you to blame.”

“Again, what’s new?”

Dinner is uninspiring but very much appreciated. Anakin tries, unsuccessfully, to sneak some of his water into Obi-Wan’s portion and Obi-Wan has to remind him to eat his full rations at least three times before he does so, on pain of having it forced down his throat.

“Stop saving your rations for me,” Obi-Wan begins their most frequent argument on-mission. “There’s more than enough for me here.”

“That’s because you don’t eat anything, Obi-Wan,” Anakin complains, though his effort is less enthusiastic than it has been when under less dismal circumstances.

“Not all of us have your appetite, darling. You don’t complain about me when we’re at home.”

“That’s because we have  _ real food _ there—even in the Temple mess.” He picks up an empty packet between his thumb and forefinger and grimaces. “This stuff is just flavoured dust. If that.”

Obi-Wan sighs and gets back to his feet, brushing the crumbs from his robe. Outside the tiny cave entrance the rain has gotten heavier, splashing into puddles and tributaries that run back down the trail. It doesn’t look like it’ll be letting up any time soon.

“How do you fancy exploring the rest of this cave, then?” he asks.

“The rest?” Anakin says. “It could easily go on forever, Master, and then we’d end up lost.”

“Maybe not all of it, then,” Obi-Wan agrees. “But at least a little farther in and we can get out of the wind.”

Anakin smiles and collects their things as he gets to his feet. “Lead the way.”

The natural path the cave leads them on slopes gently down into the mountain. Anakin takes the unbroken lantern from Obi-Wan’s pack when the darkness grows too heavy around them and holds it, lit, between them. Obi-Wan is beginning to think Anakin may be right about the caves having no end when they walk for long minutes and find nothing but more featureless rock, but a slight glinting in one of the nearest walls draws him to a curious stop. 

“What is it, Obi-Wan?” Anakin asks quietly at his shoulder. Warmth from both his body and the lantern sink into Obi-Wan’s clothes and tempt him into leaning back into them while he peers up at the glittering little stone.

“Up there,” he says, and points. “Do you see it?”

The lantern creaks as it’s held up in front of them. “Looks like some kind of crystal. Quartz, maybe? It feels weird.”

“Feels?”

Anakin’s hair brushes Obi-Wan’s neck as he turns to give him an odd look and huff out a gentle laugh. “Can you not feel that? The Force is strange down here.”

Obi-Wan turns his head to meet his slightly bemused gaze. “No, not at all. Is it a bad strange?”

“No, I don’t think so,” he replies. “But it is faint.” A small smile curls the corners of his lips, lips that Obi-Wan inexplicably realises that he quite misses despite the less-than-appropriate timing. Anakin laughs again—goodness, Obi-Wan must be projecting—and tilts his head forward to brush a soft and burning kiss to Obi-Wan’s own. “Come, Master, this is no time for distractions.”

_ Cheeky shit, _ Obi-Wan thinks and does not say. It reaches down through the bond anyway and has Anakin practically glowing with amusement. 

Fingers slip through Obi-Wan’s as they continue down the narrowing path, shoulder pressed to shoulder to keep clear of the increasingly crystal-studded walls. Vaguely he wonders when it was he became so complacent with Anakin’s tactile affections, but quickly decides that he doesn’t care in the least; there is no one here but themselves, after all, and there’s nothing that’s ever grounded him quite like Anakin’s familiar, loving presence.

“It looks like it’s opening out down there,” Anakin says after another few minutes of nothing new. He lets go of Obi-Wan’s hand and takes the lantern swinging off down the path ahead, indeed lighting up the rim of the cave mouth as they reach a gaping gullet of darkness.

_ “Anakin,” _ Obi-Wan hisses. “Slow down! You don’t know what might be in there!”

“It’s all right,” Anakin calls over his shoulder. “I can’t feel anything here except the crystals.” He fades into the darkness, merely a half-shadowed silhouette with a glowing halo of firelight. Everywhere around him glitters brightly—his own golden hyperspace. 

Obi-Wan stretches out with his feelings and, indeed, senses nothing but themselves and the barest whispering movement up ahead, intangible. It must be a large deposit of these crystals. He hurries to catch up as Anakin continues forward, unwilling to lose sight of him even if he can sense him through the bond just the same.

By the ringing, echoing shuffle of their footsteps, it sounds like the cave passage has expelled them into a truly heaven-bound cavern. The floor is the same dusty rock as before and yet made a hundred times more precarious by the unannounced outcroppings of crystal that rise from it in all shapes, sizes and heights. Lamplight bounces around them like a mirrored laser, catching at odd angles and flitting imaginary shapes and movements everywhere they look. Ahead is a small clearing, and when Anakin raises the lantern again they can see there is a jagged, shimmering wall on the other side taller than either of them can properly judge.

“This is incredible,” Obi-Wan murmurs. 

“It’s like nothing I’ve ever felt before,” Anakin agrees. “It’s like they’re… Singing.”

Obi-Wan frowns. “Are they kyber?”

“No, no, and that’s why it’s strange. It’s not like, say, the caves on Ilum at all. It feels like they’re responding to something other than just the Force.”

Obi-Wan reaches out a hesitant hand to skim the edge of one jagged crystal with his fingertips. “And is that not influenced by the Force?”

Anakin is silent for long enough to make Obi-Wan turn to look for him. He finds him sitting in the centre of the clearing in his favoured (though rarely-used) meditative pose—the one Obi-Wan first taught him—with thick tendrils of the Force coiling around and away from him like improbably docile serpents.

“I can’t tell,” he says quietly. “It’s all so… Natural. Balanced. This place feels cleansed of the influence of Dark and Light. It reminds me of us.”

Once, such an admission would have shocked Obi-Wan. That the Light is an influence is not the problem, but the implication that it could possibly be compared to that of the Dark… To those neither philosophers nor Grand Masters, such thinkings were often considered heresy. 

But not anymore.

Above Obi-Wan’s head there’s a tiny cracking noise and a tinkling of falling rock. A small shard bounces between prismoids as it descends, clattering to the floor at his feet and spinning to a glittering stop. Something about it makes him want to pick it up and inspect it, maybe introduce it as a meditative focus, but his sense of propriety and conservation keeps his hands safely inside his robesleeves.

“Take it,” Anakin prompts him gently, a gorgeously serene smile upon his face. “It’s calling to you.”

“We shouldn’t disturb what’s here, Anakin,” he points out. “We don’t want to disturb the balance you say you feel.”

“No, I really mean it, Master. It wants to go with you. It’s calling to you in the Force. It’s yours.”

Obi-Wan looks from him down to the small, thick shard at his feet. He crouches and carefully picks it up between three fingers, holding it up to the lamplight and turning it this way and that. Beyond it Anakin’s smile stretches to a grin, and their bond warms with joy and a sense of contentment. 

The crystal is transparent, for the most part. Each of its faces reflects light in a way that makes them look molten in Obi-Wan’s hand, a gentle pink-hued liquid and delicately threaded with cloudy precipitate. When he lets himself delve within the Force he is startled by the extent at which Anakin is right, how strongly this crystal wants to bond with him and become a focus of his energies. Even he is knocked off-balance by its strength.

Anakin, he knows, is rarely wrong. What goes unfortunately understated however is the ridiculous difference in sensitivity he experiences to all other known Force-sensitives; when this to Obi-Wan is what Anakin implies is only fairly strong, Obi-Wan wonders just how it is he manages to stay anchored to himself in the face of what he must feel from it.

The weight of the crystal disappearing from his hand brings him back into the physical world. He opens his eyes and sees it hovering just over his palm, buoyed by the Force in a way that Obi-Wan hasn’t unconsciously done since he was a padawan.

“I suppose it can’t hurt to bring it with us,” he concedes. “It does seem quite insistent.”

“It’s almost like it’s sentient, Master,” Anakin chuckles. “Creatures have always liked you.”

Obi-Wan snorts. “Oh, is that how it is? Then why do so many of them try to kill me?”

Anakin shrugs and unfolds himself from his abandoned meditation to amble over and inspect the gem in their hands. “Maybe I exaggerated. The trend does seem to be on the extreme side of a love-hate divide.”

“Now that’s believable.”

Anakin’s fingers skim the edges of Obi-Wan’s as he feels along the edges of the crystal. Their heads are bowed together over it, a small bubble of vibrance and light. The crystal resonates with each of their presences, fluctuating through miniscule tweaks until it is apparently attuned to both of them. It can’t be such a hard job, really, with how tightly bonded they are in the first place.

“What’s the betting the rain’s stopped up on the surface?” Anakin wonders quietly.

“Very poor, I’m afraid,” Obi-Wan replies. His breath sways the long curls that fall between them and over Anakin’s eyes. “Should we venture back?”

“I have a feeling there’s not much else for us here.”

Obi-Wan stashes the little crystal away carefully, tucking it into an inner pocket that sits it close to his chest and provides a comforting feedback loop attuned to his own heartbeat. Anakin smiles to himself as he retrieves his lamp and pack and Obi-Wan is content to watch him, to take in every movement and savour it. Savour their freedom and open affection like he has never been allowed to before.

Outside the rain still patters down stoically, unimpressed and unmoved by their lack of urgency. They settle back down on the cave floor together, just out of reach of the clawing winds, listening to the whispers of the Force and of each other’s faint breathing. The cloaks they share like blankets across their shoulders do more than the broken lantern at the mouth of the cave ever could.

_— drizzling rain - a shattered lantern - crystal caverns —_

Late afternoon, the Temple hangar is the usual humming, relatively quiet hub that Anakin expects it to be. He’s spent so many hours in this place alone he wonders distractedly how he ever had time for the rest of his classes, the ones he went to for Obi-Wan’s sake. He knows the majority of the techs here by both name and face.

Today is no different when he descends the ramp of his ship, smiling at old friends and nodding to those he doesn’t know quite as well. Artoo trundles away to do whatever he does when he’s not trailing Anakin, (hosting the latest Bitching Droid Association Meeting, he likes to think), and Ahsoka and Rex peel off to go and do whatever they do when Anakin’s not around to put a cramp in their style. 

That one he isn’t sure he wants to think about.

The halls of the Temple are emptying now as people begin to settle for the evening. He passes Master Windu outside the training halls and inclines his head in greeting. Mace returns the gesture before his eyes come to rest on the little ceramic pot in Anakin’s hand—a souvenir from their mission. Anakin grins and stifles a laugh at Mace’s amused shake of his head and they carry on, Anakin towards the living quarters and Mace towards whatever nonsense is sure to be demanding his attention now. 

“Aayla!” Anakin greets happily as he spots two figures hovering a little farther down. “Bly!”

“Anakin!” Aayla smiles. “Did it all go well?”

“As well as ever,” he replies.

“I see you’ve picked up another one, sir,” Bly says, his eyes also on the little purple plant. Anakin’s told him so many times that he needn’t call any of them ‘sir’ anymore that now he just lets him; in a way, it’s not exactly hard to understand why such a habit is so hard to break.

Anakin lifts the plant in his hand to inspect its thin and draping vines and finds the same, too-soft smile rising to his lips as when he first found it. “I thought it’s been a little while since the last one made its way home, and it was calling to me. Who was I to resist?”

“That room will be lost to a jungle soon,” Aayla sighs. “We’ll have to come and rescue you.”

“I know who to call if we ever need it, then,” he chuckles.

She loops her arm through Bly’s and pats Anakin on the shoulder. “Go on, I know you’re desperate to get back. Send our love with you.”

“Will do,” he assures, and heads off again down the well-worn hallways towards home. The slip of metal on metal is soft when the door to their apartment slides open, quiet enough not to alert Obi-Wan over the sounds of evident cooking sizzling in from their little kitchen. The familiar scent of lavender and herbs surrounds Anakin immediately, soothing the tension from his shoulders and his mind and telling him  _ you’re home, you’re safe, and Obi-Wan is here. _ He takes a deep breath and lets it out slowly, wrapping himself in the old impressions of warmth and safety and love he finds here the same way he’s done since he was ten years old and homesick. 

Old habits die hard, indeed.

Anakin stoops to place the little plant in pride of place on the coffee table instead of finding somewhere for it around the already leafy living room—wherever he puts it will inevitably be wrong, anyway, according to Obi-Wan, and even so he wouldn’t want to deprive his Master of the fun of finding the plant a new home. One plant, the half-sentient one he’s nicknamed the Force Daisy, curls its petals and bows towards him as he walks by.  _ Welcome home, _ it tells him. He strokes its stem and sends his thanks.

Obi-Wan is in the kitchen and standing over a steaming pot on the stove. A few strands of hair have fallen over his forehead and caught the light attractively as he frowns at something—a data pad, one of Qui-Gon’s old recipe books—and Anakin  _ loves _ him.

“Is this going to be edible?” he says cheekily into the back of Obi-Wan's neck when he wanders over, winds his arms around his waist and buries his nose in his soft, soft hair. 

“Anakin!” Obi-Wan greets with such a joyful tenderness. He turns his head to smile at Anakin and lifts a hand to tangle in his overgrown hair when Anakin kisses down his neck. “Welcome back, my dear.”

“I missed you,” Anakin tells the side of his cheek. “Force, I missed you so much.”

Obi-Wan chuckles and coaxes him far enough over to give a proper hello kiss. “I’ve missed you too.”

The heat is lowered on the hob before Obi-Wan turns his attention away and lets Anakin push him up onto the counter. He stands between Obi-Wan’s thighs and leans as much of himself as he can against his warm, beloved Master as he kisses him soundly, slowly, and absolutely thoroughly. He drinks in his scent, his feel, practically melts against him with the selfish want to never move again. He’s safe now, home, wrapped in the arms of the one he loves the most.

“Everything went well then, I suppose?” Obi-Wan asks when they’ve pulled back just a fraction and are forehead to forehead and nose to nose.

“Mm hm,” Anakin hums, not bothering to open his eyes. “Everything’s perfect, even the Council are happy. Met Aayla and Bly in the corridor. They send their love. Snips says hi, too. Oh, and I think Master Windu might be thinking of staging an intervention. Him or Aayla. Or, you know, anyone really at this point.”

“An intervention? Whatever for?”

Anakin grins and looks up into his beautiful blue eyes. “Why don’t you go in there and find out?” He inclines his head towards the living room, tapping Obi-Wan’s thigh and moving back just enough to let him slip back down to the floor. Obi-Wan raises him a curious, amused eyebrow but does as instructed, picking up the cutlery to set the table while he’s there. Anakin slips the data pad off the counter and takes over with the cooking; luckily for his tired mind, it’s already as good as done— _ and _ edible. Perhaps. With that hope in mind he sets about finding the soup bowls in the cupboard, smiling when he hears the noises of surprise and interest from the other room.

“This is wonderful!” Obi-Wan announces. “Oh, wherever did you find it? Look at that… What a brilliant little adaptation. I’ll have to take it to the greenhouses tomorrow to see what they make of it… Did you bring this just for me?”

Anakin returns to the living room with a bowl in each hand, setting both on the table before turning his smile on his fascinated love. Obi-Wan is holding the new, gently waving plant up to his eye level and turning it this way and that, all thoughts of dinner very obviously displaced by the feel of him through the Force.

“Well I didn’t bring it for just me now, did I?” he says. “I thought you’d like it. It seemed like something you’d find interesting. Snips told me if I didn’t bring it home and told you after you’d never forgive me.”

“I’d forgive you,” Obi-Wan protests, affronted. “Eventually.”

Anakin sighs. “Come on, Master, don’t let this get cold. You went to the trouble of making it for me, after all.”

“Hm? Oh, yes! Of course.”

The plant is returned to the coffee table and Anakin sets about recounting the story of their mission as they settle down for dinner. Obi-Wan watches him with rapt attention and a little smile, paying hardly any mind to what he’s eating (which is a shame, it’s surprisingly good) as he asks his questions and laughs when Anakin tells him about Rex’s reaction to having to play babysitter to small creatures yet again. 

Their rooms may not be large, they may not have much in terms of personal items (excepting a large number of photographs, a random assortment of trinkets and an encroaching  _ forest), _ but they have Obi-Wan, they have their bed, and they have almost two decades of memories made together. At this moment in time, Anakin can’t think of a single other thing he could ever want from the galaxy.

He has Obi-Wan. The Force whispers to him that he is home.

_— the scent of lavender - a reunion hug - pot plants —_

Anakin lies in a slanted swathe of golden light amongst the endlessly soft white bed sheets. Obi-Wan is curled next to him, tucked with his back against Anakin’s chest and his hips bracketed with Anakin’s thighs and the duvet abandoned somewhere around their knees. The late afternoon sun is warm, so wonderfully, encompassingly warm where it streams in through the open balcony archways, the columns of which are smooth and ornate like all of the others here in the lake house.

The lake house so familiar it’s like a second home.

And maybe that’s what Padmé wants. It certainly seems a likely aim of hers when she offers them her space here on Naboo whenever she herself is taking a step back from busy life in the capital, when she’s extended her welcome to  _ always, Anakin, even when I’m not with you. _ From her words he knows they are loved, but they are still Jedi and they are still themselves and they will probably never feel comfortable enough (impolite, Obi-Wan will maintain to the grave) to ever take her up on the offer. He still loves her just as much for it.

Ahsoka and Cody are around here too, somewhere. Anakin hopes they’re out and about exploring the city, maybe the lakes. They’ve never really had the time to relax and go sightseeing on the planets they’ve visited before. Cody certainly hasn’t ever had the permission. But they do now, and Anakin wants them to take full advantage of it even (perhaps especially) when he and Obi-Wan aren’t around.

Obi-Wan. Anakin curls in closer to his old Master with delighted and unapologetic pleasure. He burrows his nose into the feathery auburn hair turned burnished copper in the sunlight, drowning himself in Obi-Wan’s scent like a full blown addict. The arm he has around Obi-Wan’s waist tightens in a hug. His fingers tuck themselves between the burning line of Obi-Wan’s waist and the covers, and he finds he never, ever wants to let go. He could die here, easily. He didn’t think his heart could ever  _ be _ so full of love. Even so, the feeling of fullness in his chest threatens to choke him or put him into cardiac arrest anyway.

The arm that Obi-Wan has bent and slipped beneath his pillow and head splays out across the sheets in front of them, glowing pale and halcyon. The fingers of his other hand looped loosely around Anakin’s wrist twitch as he sighs in his doze—not sleep, not yet, Anakin can feel him too close to the surface for that. Anakin’s mechanical arm lies with Obi-Wan’s, the warming metal thumb stroking circles over the inside of his love’s wrist.

_ Soulmates, _ Rex had called them once.  _ Jetti’kad vode, _ they’d heard tossed between the brothers for years. Anakin can’t honestly say if either are correct or appropriate, but he’s gotten emotional more than once at the thought that it’s how the people they love see them. It’s what he wants, more than anything.

“You’re thinking again,” Obi-Wan mutters sleepily into the pillow. “Can feel it.”

Anakin hums and pulls his left arm up enough to tangle their fingers together over Obi-Wan’s chest. “Sorry.”

“No, ’s fine. Just thought you needed sleep.”

Anakin smiles and kisses the back of Obi-Wan’s neck, moving down to his bare shoulders to press his lips there against his warmth. The cool cotton slips smoothly around their legs as he slips down the bed a little.

“I love you,” he murmurs. It’s perfectly audible in the quiet of their vaulted chambers, with only the faint wash of the lakes on the beaches below and the rustle of the trees to accompany them. “I love you so,  _ so _ much.”

Obi-Wan shifts in his arms. He disantangles his hand and lifts his arm to instead smooth it through Anakin’s hair, a motion Anakin knows he knows will make him purr with satisfaction. He cranes his head over his shoulder to press an awkward but wholehearted little kiss to Anakin’s forehead.

“I love you too, Anakin,” he says. “You are my dearest, my love, and always will be.”

Anakin’s hand tucks back around Obi-Wan’s middle and he snuggles down contentedly against his solid, wide and freckled back. He sighs at the lack of tension in either of their bodies, feeling himself sink into the mattress and the siren call of his drowsiness.

“Good,” he mumbles, “because you’re never getting rid of me.”

“Good,” Obi-Wan echoes, “because I don’t know what I’d ever do if I did.”

Anakin snorts and hides his face between the pillows and Obi-Wan’s shoulder. “Love you.”

“And I love you too.”

_— late afternoon light - the feel of cotton bed sheets - a quiet confession —_

A shrill beeping and a brilliant round of laughter cut through the conversation at the kitchen table, drawing Obi-Wan’s attention away from Quinlan and towards the two…  _ Three _ sitting cross-legged in the middle of the living room floor.

“Did he really?” Anakin asks a rather disgruntled Artoo. “No wonder your wires are so tangled…”

“Sometimes with the way you both whine, I can’t believe you’re still friends!” Ahsoka cackles.

Artoo’s front panel is on the floor and half of his internal circuitry guts are spilling into Anakin’s hands for a routine service while they chat. By the sounds of it, the little astromech is taking the opportunity to air out his grievances with his protocol droid friend Threepio. When Obi-Wan draws his gaze back up to Quinlan he’s met with an irritatingly knowing smirk and the realisation that he’s gone absolutely  _ soft. _

“You’re happy,” Quinlan observes. Obi-Wan shrugs and wrangles the adoring twist of his lips into something more appropriate for Jedi. “Come on, it’s hardly a bad thing! I’m glad for you.” He reaches over to poke Obi-Wan with a finger, which is when Obi-Wan notices that his nails are bitten and ragged and a far cry from their usual neat clip. 

“You’re worried,” Obi-Wan returns, giving him a pointed look. “Is it about Aayla? You know she’s more than capable of taking care of herself—she has Bly, after all, and we’re no longer at war. There are no Separatist forces to jump out and ambush her, not on Kafrene.”

Quinlan sighs and leans back in his chair, inspecting his nails as he flattens his palms against the table top. His tea sits steaming gently between his thumbs. “I know she is, I do,” he says. “I keep telling myself the same thing, but it’s still hard not to worry.”

Obi-Wan hums and takes a sip of his own tea. “I understand.  _ Your _ Commander is well, I take it?”

This time it’s Quin who smiles besottedly. “Doing better every day.”

“Well next time you tell him that he can mind his own business,” Anakin is saying. “He has his own duties to attend to. Padmé has enough on her plate as it is.”

“You know, you’re always so good with what other people are feeling,” Quinlan chuckles. “Sometimes I wonder how you do it, but I suppose they didn’t give you two those jumped-up titles for nothing.” 

Obi-Wan looks lingeringly over at his family once more and this time lets himself smile. “I’ve had a lot of practise,” he admits. “It’s never easy, but it’s been worth every second of it.”

Quinlan nods like he understands, an amused look in his eyes that tells Obi-Wan he’s well on track to becoming a sappy old man. Maybe, he supposes, Quinlan really does understand. The next time Anakin and Ahsoka laugh they both watch them and smile, a deep, saturating contentment flowing graciously through the Force surrounding them.

Yes. Happy is a good word for them.

_— an old friend’s worries - knowing smiles - bitten nails_ —

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading!!  
> Find me on [tumblr!](https://silverxsakura.tumblr.com/)  
> I also have a [star wars pinterest board](https://www.pinterest.co.uk/silverxsakura/-star-wars-/) if anyone's interested. With the growing number of sections to it I'm beginning to think it's an addiction, but regardless, I'm quite proud of it! I'm so attached to these guys it's ridiculous.


End file.
